Moments: My Heart to the Skies

Tarn 2013

In life, simple moments can be some of the most powerful forces of change, despite sometimes lasting less than a second:

Astrid would be hard pressed to admit this to anyone given the Berkian attitude towards dragons, but sitting atop a Deadly Nadder in the heat of battle, calling out orders to her comrades... it just felt right. Hiccup had made quick work of getting the dragons from the arena to calm themselves and with a little work, the teens had each bonded with a dragon of their own. Watching the young man enact his plan was more than a little exhilirating, given that only hours ago the Nightmare had nearly taken Hiccup's face off in the ring.

But now the situation was dire, Berk's catapults had cracked open the nest, awaking the sleeping beast that slumbered within. Every dragon besides the behemoth had fled, fearing for their own lives.

Arriving on the scene, Hiccup had given orders to the other teens and instructed Astrid to drop him on one of the flaming ships where Toothless remained locked up, "Go help the others!"

As she pulled away from the shore and back towards the creature and her fellow classmates, she tried to ignore the strange feeling she felt about leaving Hiccup on a flaming wreck of a ship.

Returning to the heart of the battle, she noticed the beast cry out in pain and saw that Snotlout had somehow lost his mount and was atop the dragon's head attacking it's eyes. "Yeah! You're the viking!" she yelled to him, deciding to toss his ego a little boost given the ridiculously bold nature of what he was doing.

"He's up!" Astrid cried out excitedly as a black streak took to the skies from the firey shoreline. He made it! Her relief was understandable given the situation, but the level to which it lifted her up was confusing in a way that she simply had no time to ponder.

Pulling the harness ropes to bank her Nadder to the right of the beast's giant maw, she shouted out to the twins aboard their Zippleback, "Get Snotlout out of there!"

Coming around to meet back up with them after they somehow managed to pull close enough to the dragon's spiked back for Snotlout to launch himself onto the Zippleback she could hear Tuffnut cry out "I can't believe that worked!"

That was when things went from bad to worse as the Nadder pulled out in front of the beast's head. A deafening whistling begun to form as the wind whipping past Astrid reversed direction, indicating the colossal dragon was inhaling in preparation to either consume her and the Nadder or to incinerate them in a flaming barrage. Holding onto the rope harness for dear life, she felt her legs dangle as a sense of weightlessness came over her as the backward motion increased. 'Thor help me, I'm dead. I'm sorry Hiccup.' Astrid thought as she dangled helplessly behind the blue dragon. Above the terrifying whistling from the inhaling creature a new sound tore through the air, a sound that Astrid knew well and despite it all a small smile lit up her face.

Seconds later a searing heat from a deafening explosion threw every one of the Nadder pilot's senses into overload as the heat was replaced with the stomach lurching sensation of falling. The ground and sky began to spin out of control as she tumbled towards the rocky shores, and all she could do was let out a blood curdling scream.

'Please Hiccup!' was the only thing that ran through her mind as the ground began zooming ever closer. A sudden and extreme sense of vertigo hit as she felt something yank powerfully and painfully on her leg. Taking in her surroundings she saw the pitch black scales of the underside of the Night Fury, a panicked voice calling out from above, "Did you get her?!"

Seeing the cat like face of Toothless looking underneath at her with a gummy smile could only bring her to grin. Hiccup and Toothless had pulled off the impossible yet again and plucked her from certain doom for the second time in only seconds.

As they raced to the shore, the Night Fury flipped her with its powerful legs and caught her by the shoulders to release her on the shores at a run.

Astrid slowed her run to a halt, ragged breaths coming in quick succession fueled by adrenaline. Unable to take her eyes off of the retreating form as wings the color of midnight fearlessly returned to the skies, the young viking woman came to the sudden realization that for better or worse, this was the most important moment in the history of Berk.

Every fiber of her being was ablaze and her heart felt it would burst with pride and something she couldnt quite understand as the unlikely pair soared to the heavens to combat the beast. Feeling compelled to send them on their way with some sort of encouragement she uttered a simple phrase, but with the single breathless word she sent her love and indeed her heart to the skies, "Go!"

Thanks to everyone for reading... this third part was really what I was aiming for with this series, the emotion and intensity in the end of this scene really was something.